I’ve always been fascinated by old machines, mechanical toys and especially automatons. If I had been better at mathematics, I would probably have studied Mechanical Engineering instead of Fine Arts…
I had been wanting to make a simple automaton for a while now, and after investigating a bit on the web and rummaging through my scraproom, I created my first interactive piece of homedecor, inspired by the August challenge at Up&Scrap. I called it “The Rainbow Factory”.
As you can see the mechanism is very simple. It’s made up by a central shaft with six wooden disks and six pistons that are attached to six paper gnomes. Let’s see it in action…
When the crank is rotated, the pistons move up and down producing a nice tinkling. Those happy gnomes won’t stop working and making rainbows…
I used a fun stamp set by My Favorite Things called “You gnome me” for this project. I stamped them on heavyweight Neenah cardstock and colored them with Copic markers. Then I fussy cut them and adhered them to the wooden sticks with liquid glue.
I cut the rainbow with a Paper Smooches die and the clouds with a Die-namics set called “In the clouds”.
To give the mechanism a fun touch, I painted the edge of the disks with gouache paint. I bought both the disks and rectangles from an Etsy store a couple of years ago, but I can’t find it anymore.
The crank, made with two discs, is very simple and the shaft is actually a 5mm knitting needle. Hahaha, nothing is wasted here!
I hope you liked this crazy project of mine. Please come back tomorrow for my second entry as guest designer for My Favorite Things. You can check my first one HERE. ^_^
This post is also available in: Español
